Winter K2: End of Another Polish Attempt on The Mountain of Mountains

Polish team has decided to conclude the K2 winter expedition 2018 and start the return trip. The expedition manager drafted a list of causes for the cancellation of further action. Nevertheless, given the chain of events of past week or so, it seemed inevitable. This was perhaps the only rational option as well.

Extended Bad Weather
A week ago, Denis Urubko returned to BC after failed solo summit push. He was turned back by adverse weather and difficult route conditions at around 7600m. A day later, strong wind stopped all the action on the mountain.

Initially, it was expected that weather would improve by the start of March. The team planned to go for an acclimatization round, return to BC for rest & recover and wait for a second window to launch summit-bid. Nevertheless, bad weather extended right till the end of the week. Strong wind was followed by heavy snowfall.

Reconnaissance
Meteorological conditions showed sign of improvement, yesterday. Adam Bielecki and Janusz Golab went up this morning to check route conditions and unfortunately the results were not very pleasant. The duo found the tent at the base of Abruzzi Spur damaged, ropes between C1 and C2 covered under snow and it seemed likely that higher camp wouldn’t have survived the bad weather either. Heavy snowfall of past few days had made the mountain slopes extremely avalanche prone.

Besides, weather forecast predicted more bad weather in coming days, with a brief window around March 11th. It was neither good for acclimatization nor a summit attempt. Note that only Adam Bielecki had spent two nights at 7200m, while no other member still in BC had reached the 7000m mark.

“The priority of the expedition is the safety of the participants.” Krzysztof Wielicki wrote in an official communication by the team.